The Pierced Heart: A Novel (17 page)

The last thing I saw, as we passed, was Mr Holman, at the door of Bourne House, and with him the curate of the little church below the graveyard.

I have never seen such terror in the faces of men.

CHAPTER SEVEN
 

L
ONDON

I
T TOOK
C
HARLES A
long time to convince Sam that the girl found in the Shepherd’s Market alley-way could be the fourth victim of the same murderer. A murderer of the type Charles’s great-uncle once called a sequential killer, more than a hundred years before the coinage of a far better-known modern phrase. And Sam’s reasoning did hold, up to a point—the girl in the alley was intact, there was no eviscerated heart, not a single drop of blood. In fact, it was only when Charles grasped his friend’s arm and forced him to stand in front of the previous victim to show him almost identical wounds on her neck that Sam was reluctantly convinced. And it was only then, of course, that they understood the significance of what the old woman in the alley claimed to have seen, and they realised they might have had their first sighting of the man they had been seeking. But after spending the best part of the night interviewing his drunk and increasingly disorderly witness, Sam is in no very positive frame of mind when he knocks at the door of the Buckingham Street house at just after ten the following day. Though from what Abel Stornaway tells him, he’s not the only one in need of sleep, a hot bath, and a decent breakfast.

“I dinnae think Mr Charles has been to bed at all. He’s been pacing up and down in the office mostae the night, I reckon.”

Sam makes a face, half to himself. It’s a poser, this case, and no mistake, but he can’t see why his old colleague should be taking it so much to heart. It’s Sam’s job that’s on the line, after all. And a new job at that.

“Can I go up?” he says.

“Of course ye may. Will ’ee be wantin’ anythin’?”

Sam shakes his head and starts up the stairs, and when he turns the bend on the first landing he finds little Betsy eyeing him shyly through the bannisters above, and the two of them play a boisterous game of peek-a-boo for a minute or two before Charles hears the commotion and the office door bangs open.

“
Nancy!
” he shouts down over the landing, and the little girl gapes at him a moment with huge rounded eyes before racing back upstairs and out of sight.

“Looks like you scared ’er,” offers Sam, following Charles into the office, but he gets no reply. Charles’s sleepless night has clearly done little for his mood.

“What did the doctor at the morgue say?” asks Charles, levering himself back down into his chair.

Sam shrugs. “Said she’d lost a lot ’a blood, but ’e couldn’t account for ’ow it might ’ave ’appened. Or what killed ’er. The word ’e used was ‘inconclusive.’ Which is fancy talk for ‘no bleedin’ idea’ if you ask me. ’E ain’t got no more idea ’ow she died than I ’ave.”

“And the old woman—did she see anything? What the man looked like—what he was wearing?”

Sam snorts and shakes his head. “She’s still soberin’ up, but I don’t reckon she’ll be much use even when she does. Claims she didn’t see ’is face, and can’t tell us ’ow long the girl’d been there. To be honest, I’m not sure she even knows what bloody day it is. Most of it were a load o’ nonsense—just the gin talkin’.”

He’s fiddling with a button on his coat now, and Charles knows something tricky is coming.

“Look, Chas,” he says eventually. “Are you sure about this? ’Cause apart from ’er lookin’ so white, I just can’t see the connexion wiv this latest one. Those marks you saw—it were just pin-pricks, weren’t it? Made by a necklace or such? And given the first two are already rottin’ in their graves we can’t even say for sure they ’ad the same. It just seems like a wild goose chase to me. An’ that ain’t like you.”

You will have gathered by now that Charles has not told Sam what he was really looking for at the morgue, or shared the conversation he had with O’Riordan that led to it. Because at one level Sam is, of course, completely right. It is, indeed, very unlike Charles to behave in a way that defies logic, logic being one of the two principles Maddox taught him, and which he has always worked by. The very notion that there might be some supernatural force at work here is an utterly insane idea that would have Charles laughed out of any police-station in London if he even raised it as a possibility. But all the same, he cannot completely discount it. For the very simple reason that he has not—even after a sleepless night thinking about it—found another explanation for the marks on those girls’ necks. And that’s what he needs, because without it there’s no way he can close down O’Riordan—or open up to Sam.

“I don’t think that’s the answer,” he says eventually. “There’s no necklace I’ve ever seen that could leave such a scar. Especially only on one side.”

They sit in silence a moment, then Sam sighs. “Only time I’ve ever seen anyfing like that were on me ma’s arm after she ’ad our Tilly. After they blooded ’er.”

Charles stares at him. “
Say that again.
”

Sam flushes. “I know it ain’t the same, but when me ma had the fever after ’er confinement, the quack bled ’er. He ’ad some weird little instrument that left a hole a bit like those ones on the girls. But that
were on ’er arm, not ’er neck, and it were only one mark not two, an’ much bigger.”

Charles gets up and goes to the window. “But it might be the answer all the same, Sam. It would explain the state of the bodies—if the girls had been bled, and aggressively, just before they died then they might well have looked that pale.”

“But why would ’e want to do that to ’em? And if these marks ain’t the same, ’ow does that ’elp us anyways?”

Charles turns towards him. “But that’s just it, they
might be
. It’s a long time since I let blood, and in my opinion it usually does a lot more harm than good, but I know they’ve invented some new instruments in the last few years—instruments that might leave marks exactly like that.”

“But how are you goin’ to find that out? Could take days—weeks even.”

“No,” says Charles, “it won’t. Because I know exactly where to go.”

Half an hour later he’s in a hansom cab heading along Pall Mall. A hansom cab because impatience has outrun prudence, and the crowds make the ’buses not just slow but sweltering. But even the cab makes heavy weather of such a short journey, and Charles stares out of the window in a simmering and impotent irritation as they travel scarcely faster than a foot’s pace up towards Hyde Park, and into the ramshackle village of makeshift booths and stalls that has sprung up about the Great Exhibition entrances. When he steps down from the carriage the air is salty with the smell of the fried fish and sausages which are the Victorian equivalent of fast food and a good deal less refined than the sandwiches and soda water offered by the Refreshment Courts inside. The Exhibition hall catches the full glare of the morning sun, glittering like some exotic Far Eastern pavilion, and although Charles has been rather patronising about this whole endeavour ever since he heard it was planned, even he cannot fail to be struck by the
skill of its engineers, and when he reaches the head of the queue and is allowed inside even his breath catches a little at the sight of the vast ironwork nave that opens before him. And
nave
is the right word, for this is truly a cathedral to commerce. At the far end, a living tree stands beneath the arching apse-like glass, and galleries run like clerestories on either side, balconied with red and hung with long pennants of yellow and blue. And as for the exhibits—the sheer range and resplendence on show here staggers the mind. From where he is standing Charles can see a line of huge statues retreating into the distance, horsemen on rearing steeds, enormous bronze urns three men high, reproduction Greek goddesses, and plaster casts of celebrated samples of ecclesiastical architecture. The courts of the exhibiting nations open from the aisle like side-chapels, each bearing its flag like a saint’s insignia, and a gold name blazoned above. And everywhere, everywhere, there are people. Moving, milling, pointing, appraising. The noise booms against the glass like a revolution.

If Charles thought this would be a quick dip in and out to pocket the information he’s after, then he knows now how wrong he was. Charles—as you may know—is unusually good at finding his way, and his quasi-photographic memory has stood him in good stead (indeed saved his hide) on more than one occasion. But in a place like this, even he needs a map. Happily, however, there are ranks of fresh-faced young men in freshly pressed uniforms handing out neatly folded floor-plans to anyone who wants one, and within a few minutes Charles is making his way up the stairs towards a sign proclaiming
PHILOSOPHICAL, MUSICAL, HOROLOGICAL AND SURGICAL INSTRUMENTS
. The crowds here are much thinner, but for Charles, this is like Aladdin’s cave and a magic toy-shop all rolled into one. He knows at once that he must come back—there is so much here it will take a week’s diligence to see it all. So many pioneering discoveries and so many testaments to the human capacity to turn those discoveries to practical use. From envelope-folding machines to oyster-openers, air-pumps
to astronomical clocks. He would have come here for the photographic exhibits alone, and despite the urgency of his task he lingers longingly over an array of the latest daguerreotype machines, reading about a recent photographic experiment which claims to prove the “existence of luminous and actinic rays in the solar beam.” Then a man in Exhibition livery announces that Mr Dawson’s talk on “The Principles and Applications of Electro-magnetism” is about to begin, and Charles is drawn along in the wake of a cluster of sombre-looking gentlemen towards lines of chairs placed theatre-like for the lecture. After a few minutes of introduction, Dawson invites his audience to join him at a case of scientific instruments, so that he can point out some of the many uses of this marvellous and still mysterious phenomenon, from medical galvanism to a new electrical telegraph already in use in parts of Saxony. And then he turns to the assembly and asks if they would be so good as to follow him to the adjoining gallery, where he will demonstrate the creation of electro-static energy. The apparatus in question is a large glass ball suspended between two metal pillars and standing on a wooden plinth. It is positioned close by the balcony, overlooking the teeming hall below, and as Dawson begins to describe its operation—“a small amount of mercury is injected into a vacuum, such that the glass globe gives off both light and an electric charge when set in motion”—Charles’s eye is drawn down and across the crowd to a tall figure in a dark coat and a top hat. And as he watches the man move away in the direction of the Prussian court a fist of ice closes about his chest. It cannot be—surely—it
cannot be
. It’s too far away to see his face, and the man has his back towards him, but the gait is the same, the height is the same—good God, the man is even holding a small sunscreen to his eyes, to ward away the sunlight streaming through the glass.

Charles extricates himself from the group and makes his way, his heart and pace quickening, down the stairs and out into the nave. He can still see the top-hatted figure, but he’s yards away now. He tries to push through the throng gathered about the hydraulic machinery, but the press of people is too packed—elderly ladies leaning on sticks, little children dawdling, distracted mothers not looking where they’re
going. By the time Charles reaches the Prussian court there is no sign of his quarry. He stands there, out of breath, looking up and down—half the men in the place are wearing the same hats, the same dark coats, but none walks as
he
does, and none carries a sunscreen, even inside. Charles curses under his breath, though not quietly enough, it seems, for a fat and sweaty-faced clergyman gives him a look of rebuke and hurries his dowdy wife and daughters away. And then Charles spots the man again. At the far end now, moving towards the tiered fountain, where refreshments are on offer and food is served. The crowds are thicker than ever here—it’s gone noon now—and Charles strains through the queuing hordes like a man drowning, desperate to keep his man in sight. But now the tall figure is no longer moving. He’s standing, the face turned away and the back bent, and as Charles draws level and grips his arm, forcing him round, there are murmurs of shocked outrage as the elderly man gasps and nearly loses his footing, and his little padded sunscreen clatters to the ground. And then Charles is backing away, his face red, mumbling an apology, stammering something about mistaken identity. Because this is not who he thought it was, and he has never seen this man’s face before.

By the time he has returned to the stairs and the second storey, there is an official standing at the entrance to the scientific galleries, and a coiled red rope barring the way. His Royal Highness is visiting that part of the Exhibition this afternoon, explains the functionary, and the galleries will, in consequence, be closed to the public until six o’clock this evening. Charles starts to say something about it being an urgent matter and police business, then flushes, self-conscious, when the man asks for his name and rank.